August 18, 2009

At the heart of the church is the call to be on mission in the
context of community - and the key to doing life together as we move
towards and bless particular groups of people around us is the gospel.

One of my concerns with our heavy use of the word 'gospel' is that
it can become watered-down and lose both its meaning and its ability to
motivate us towards community and mission. So we need constant and
regular reminders about the content of the gospel; we should regularly
rehearse and practice the content of this word which brings a holistic
salvation to the people God calls to himself.

God requires two things of us: punishment for our sins and
perfection in our lives. Our sins must be punished, and our lives must
be righteous. But we cannot bear our own punishment, and we cannot
provide our own righteousness. Therefore, God, out of His immeasurable
love for us, provided his own Son to do both. Christ bears our
punishment, and Christ performs our righteousness. And when we receive
Christ, all of his punishment and all of his righteousness is counted
as ours.

Tim Keller has written that every problem we face is due to the fact
that we fail to take in and live out the gospel - here's a practical
way for you to take on life with a satisfying an sustaining hope in God.

August 17, 2009

The Desiring God website has a series of answers that John Piper gives to questions that people send in. Today, Dr. Piper answers the question - 'Why is differentiating between evangelism and missions important?' You can read or listen or watch the answer here.

A friend of mine asked what me (and others) what we thought about Piper's answer. Here's my response:

What I appreciate about John is his concern that the mission of God
extend to unreached people groups. He has been banging that drum since
a lot of us were wearing diapers and I thank God for that.

He has also stood firm in insisting that evangelism is a word – a
declaration about what has done in time and space through Jesus Christ.
This is critical in a church world that increasingly resonates with the
pseudographical word attributed to St. Francis – ‘preach the gospel,
use words if necessary.’

Here’s where the problem begins to creep in for me (and no, I don’t
think his distinctions hold up across the course of the Scriptures). I
remain concerned that the brothers in T4G (particularly Dever and
Piper) are taking what is of first importance in the gospel (‘Jesus
died for our sins’) and extrapolating that as the full weight of the
gospel, as though God’s complete mission can be summarized in the
justification/sanctification/glorification of individuals (to the glory
of God) with less attention given to the biblical emphases placed on the
renewal and redemption of cultures and creation (they don’t ignore them
but see them as implications of the gospel).

You see the effect of this in the answer Piper gives to the
distinction between evangelism and missions. If he had said, ‘Yes,
there is a difference between evangelism and mission(s). The mission of
God is a holistic blessing of the nations that includes what we call
evangelism but it’s more than just the words we say – it involves every
aspect of our lives. There is no mission of God apart from the story of
God’s work in and through the cross but God’s mission is bigger than
evangelism’, he would still uphold the necessity of declaring the
gospel word – whenever, wherever – without creating what I encounter
with Piper fan-boys who think the only thing that matters in life is
evangelism and bonus points if you do it across an ocean.

I see two particular opportunities to get all of us back on the same page:
- Clarity on the mission of God. Is the mission of God more than a declaration of the gospel?
- Clarity on what constitutes a culture. Is cross-cultural ministry something that can only take place on foreign soil?

So as a guy whose very first interaction on the internet back in ‘95
was to print off every John Piper sermon available from 1980 to 1995, I
would say that yes, there are distinctions between evangelism and
mission(s) but in this case I don’t believe Dr. Piper’s distinctions
hold up against the Scriptures and I don’t find them particularly
helpful.

What do you think about Piper's distinction between evangelism and missions? Does this fit the shape and scope of the Scriptures? How would you answer the question?

March 18, 2009

Here is a simple exhortation that I have been trying to implement in our family:

Seek to see and feel the gospel as bigger as years go by rather than smaller.

Our temptation is to think that the gospel is for beginners and then we
go on to greater things. But the real challenge is to see the gospel as
the greatest thing—and getting greater all the time.

The Gospel gets bigger when, in your heart,

grace gets bigger;

Christ gets greater;

his death gets more wonderful;

his resurrection gets more astonishing;

the work of the Spirit gets mightier;

the power of the gospel gets more pervasive;

its global extent gets wider;

your own sin gets uglier;

the devil gets more evil;

the gospel's roots in eternity go deeper;

its connections with everything in the Bible and in the world get stronger;

and the magnitude of its celebration in eternity gets louder.

So keep this in mind: Never let the gospel get smaller in your heart.

Pray that it won't. Read solid books on it. Sing about it. Tell someone about it who is ignorant or unsure about it.

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel....
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received:
that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that
he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with
the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)